Album Reviews

September 28, 1986|By Stephen Brown Sentinel Music Critic

**** Aaron Copland, Appalachian Spring Suite, and Igor Stravinsky, Apollo, performed by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Antal Dorati conducting (London 414 457-1): Thanks to Dorati's sensitive but still taut direction, these two ballet scores come across as spontaneous and personal, but never slack.

In Appalachian Spring, the orchestra really punches out the bouncing, syncopated rhythms that give Copland his quintessentially American vitality. But even in the score's quieter passages -- where he warms up the sound of the winds and emphasizes the gentle smoothness of the strings -- Dorati keeps every phrase clean and supple, so that even the broadest melodies have their own brand of energy.

There is still more nimbleness in Apollo, Stravinsky's Greek-inspired score for strings: The quick sections are lean and sharply etched, almost giddy in their lightness. In the more stately passages, especially the final Apotheose, Dorati keeps the rhythms snappy, so that the music always moves along with a firm, dignified tread. And when Dorati takes the Detroit strings down to their most glistening pianissimo, he proves that even in Stravinsky, there is a place for tenderness -- as long as it still has some backbone.

** Ludwig van Beethoven, Waldstein Sonata, Andante favori and Sonata in E, opus 109, performed by pianist Claudio Arrau (Philips 416 145-1): Whenever talk turns to Beethoven's most heroic, muscle-flexing moods, the brilliant Waldstein is sure to come up. But you don't get much of that from this new recording by the octogenarian Arrau.

Arrau goes in for tempos that are decidedly on the careful side, and still there are little bumps and smudges along the way that give his Beethoven an overall air of clunkiness. Of sweep or bravura -- or even energy -- there is precious little. And even the much-praised, golden Arrau tone works against him at times, leading to murk rather than richness.

The less demanding Andante favori fares better; Arrau bathes its gentle tunes in mellow, genial sound. With opus 109, he turns heavy once more. The very improvisatory opening gets an attractively free and spacious treatment. But as in Arrau's Waldstein, the turbulent middle movement is conspicuously short on real thrust. Then, he takes the finale so slowly that there's hardly a sense of the songfulness Beethoven himself requests.